USS Ramsay (DD-124) - Service History

Service History

Assigned to Division 12, Destroyer Force, Atlantic Fleet, Ramsay completed shakedown off Cuba in March, participated in fleet maneuvers in early April, and then sailed for New York. She got underway in May for the Azores to act as a guide and weather observer for the NC transatlantic flights. Steaming between the Azores and Portugal from 16 May to 25 May, she returned to the United States 6 June. For the next month she conducted tactical exercises along the East Coast and, on 6 July, put into Norfolk to prepare for transfer to the Pacific.

Ramsay arrived at San Diego 7 August and, after overhaul at Mare Island Naval Shipyard, commenced 2 years of operations with Destroyer Force, Pacific. On 17 July 1920 she was designated DD-124. In the spring of 1922, she prepared for inactivation and, on 30 June 1922, she was decommissioned and berthed at San Diego as a unit of the Reserve Fleet. Recommissioned 8 years later, 2 June 1930, she was reclassified as a light minelayer, redesignated DM-16 on 13 June, and homeported at Pearl Harbor. Converted at the Navy Yard there, she operated with Minecraft, Battle Force, primarily in the Hawaiian area until 1937 when she returned to San Diego for her second inactivation and was decommissioned 14 December 1937. Recommissioned 25 September 1939, she joined MinDiv 5, Minecraft, Battle Force, and for the next year conducted patrols engaged in gunnery drills and landing exercises, and trained naval reservists along the Pacific coast.